President’s message

Margaret Kennedy gave the following address at the start of her Presidential year at the Club’s AGM on 21st April 2011 

My wish for the year is that we do two things:

Firstly my chosen charity is Motor Neurone DiseaseScotland.

I have nursed people in the past with similar conditions and recognise the challenges presented to those with the condition and their families.

Motor Neurone Disease stops the nerve cells that control the body’s movement from sending messages to muscles. Importantly is the fact that it is often of rapid onset and always fatal. At present there is no known cure. One interesting – and terrible – statistic: in April of 2007 the number of people in Scotland with MND was 274, today it is 398 with 33 in Fife. Clarifying that in terms of caseload means, each of the care team areas has seen an increase in patient numbers of between 30-65% in just four years. Incidence of MND continues to be on the rise – around 10% each year.  What goes along with service delivery but cost – the services and support as part of MND Scotland cost almost £1 million each year, meaning the organisation needs to raise over £19,000 every week. Whilst we aren’t intending to raise anything like £19k our monies will be put to good work. The fundraising we do will be going into the overall care costs pot as the ethos of MND S is to ensure equality of its service to individuals.

I said there were two things I hoped we would do this year……….

Secondly I hope that members agree to my theme for the year – mental health and wellbeing.

We are all  busy people and recognise the value of relaxation and spending time with family and friends. For some that is not possible for a variety of reasons and will clearly have an effect on their mental wellbeing. In the setting of the diary dates for next session  I hope we can ensure that this theme runs through what we plan.

Just as important is our mental wellbeing – gained through fun and friendship – so I hereby declare that we will have more fun this year. Whilst our service is extremely important we should not lose sight of the fact that this is our social time, our relaxation time so planning social activities will be an integral part of the year’s events. Following discussions at the Exec we hope that someone might be willing to take up the mantle of ‘Social Convenor’ in order to assist in the merry making, I leave that with you………

I look forward to my year immensely.